'Mr F'' asked, "Will the coloration or something indicate to me which sample of water contains more cyanide? I would like to find out if a sample of peach in water vs apple in water contains more cyanide after 10 minutes."

A couple of things come to mind about your question.

This test is a presence-absence, pass-fail test which will tell you if free dissolved cyanide is present, but not how much is present

The majority of cyanide will come from the peach pit and apple seeds, we believe, so any test you perform should involve those items. Grinding them works best if you want to get higher cyanide concentrations.

A quantitative cyanide test you can perform does exist, but we do not actively carry it. If interested, let us know and we will see about carrying a few in one of our stores.

A concerned reader from the Ohio area asked, “Do you know of a mercury cyanide testing kit that works on puddle water? Our neighborhood is right on the edge of a big factory that has a lot of metal storing tanks with we don’t know what in them but we know the place does metal working and my frioend said metal working often uses mercury and cyanide. Can you help?”

We thank our friend from the Ohio area for their inquiry and would first like to congratulate them on taking the first step towards understanding more about the impact a local factory that works with metals (and possibly some ‘interesting’ chemicals stored in tanks) may or may not have on their water supply — or at least on the surface (puddle) water they encounter.

Given that the inquiry asked specifically about water pooled on the ground, we will assume our reader encountered puddles of water that formed as a result of runoff from the factory’s property and appeared to contain… ‘something unusual’ in terms of their color or other visual nature.

Having said that, we believe the more likely culprit responsible for why a puddle appeared ‘unusual’ probably had more to do with the presence of of oils, greases, and/or organic solvents than it did dissolved metals like mercury and/or cyanide. Oils, greases, and solvents tend to leave a (sometimes) colorful film on water’s surface whereas dissolved metals would typically impart no visually detectable characteristics.

To test for commonly found compounds in the oil, grease, and organic solvent families one must contact a certified water testing laboratory because no at-home water test kits exist that can reliably qualify or quantify compounds of their complexity.

Although we did say that we do not believe mercury or cyanide caused any of the discoloration our reader may have seen in a puddle, that does not mean cyanide, a compound used in many metal finishing shops, and mercury may not have washed down from the factory during a heavy rainstorm (or over time with light rains).

Thankfully simple and affordable test kits for cyanide and mercury do exist… and require no special equipment, training, or complex testing procedures.

Boris’ Mercury detects dissolved mercury (Hg) as low as 2 ppb (parts per billion) and as high as 80 ppb. Each bottle comes with 50 tests and each test requires just 1 1/2 minutes to complete.

Cyanide in Water Emergency Test Kit allows the average person to quickly test for the presence of dissolved cyanide in water. The test provides presence/absence test results for dissolved cyanide concentrations between 0.2 ppm an 1,700 ppm, takes very little time to perform, and costs very little.

Moral of the story?

If you see something unusual in your environment, don’t hesitate to ask questions like, “What is that? Why is that? Is that safe?” and definitely look for the answers to your questions. Often times factories (perhaps like the one mentioned at the start of this article) do not know they have a leak… or, in more extreme cases, they hope no one notices their leak.

Drawing attention to a possible problem begins the process of: 1) Determining if a problem exists; 2) Fixing the problem; 3) Installing proper safeguards to prevent the problem from happening again; and 4) Cleaning up any environmental damage caused by the problem.

Representatives and employees of government and non-profit environmental protection groups cannot be everywhere at all times so the nest time you see something that you think may pose a hazard to the environment, whose cleanliness helps make safe drinking water possible, do not just shrug it off and say, “Someone else will report it.”

One quick call may keep many animals, plants and people from serious illness… or death.

In our last posting we mentioned a relatively new water testing meter called the eXact Micro 8 because of its ability to test for both free dissolved iron and total iron. We since have received a number of emails from our readers asking for more information about the eXact Micro 8.

Below you will find a list of the water quality parameters that this meter will test along w/ the meter’s detection levels for each parameter.

While this meter seems to offer tremendous promise for water quality professionals, we do not think it will work well for the average homeowner who will more likely have more of a need to test for things like free & total chlorine, (standard) pH and copper than they would ammonia, cyanide and phosphates.

This meter, we feel, will have a lot more popularity with water and waste water professionals who, we hope, will do their due diligence and test for things like ammonia, cyanide and phosphates in drinking and process water.

We have yet to find a simpler, more versatile water testing meter than the eXact Micro 7+ Water Testing Meter. It can test for Total Alkalinity, Bromine, Calcium Hardness, Free Chlorine, Total Chlorine, Copper, Ozone, Permanganate, and pH directly — providing you use the correct reagentstrip.

Blue baby syndrome. A very good reason to test the water coming up from your well for nitrates.

Blue baby syndrome can also be caused by Methemoglobinemia. It is believed to be caused by high nitrate contamination in ground water resulting in decreased oxygen carrying capacity of hemoglobin in babies leading to death. The groundwater is thought to be contaminated by leaching of nitrate generated from fertilizer used in agricultural lands and waste dumps [4]. It may also be related to some pesticides (DDT, PCBs etc), which cause ecotoxicological problems in the food chains of living organisms, increasing BOD, which kills aquatic animals. ( source )

So… elevated nitrate levels in drinking water can lead to ‘methemoglobinemia’, but what does that word MEAN?

The disorder methemoglobinemia typically means the blood contains elevated levels of methemoglobin (metHb), a form of hemoglobin that really and truly likes to attach itself to oxygen molecules — and if present in too great a quantity it will latch onto enough oxygen molecules to cause living tissue to die as a result of oxygen-deprivation.

Where does the ‘blue’ part of blue baby syndrome come from?

Without proper oxygenation of red blood cells a condition known as cyanosis occurs. Note: The term has nothing to do with cyanide, though cyanide poisoning can definitely result in skin turning a shade of blue due to oxygen deprivation.

But, since the topic of cyanide has come up, if you believe you may have someone out to get you, or perhaps you live close to industrial facilities that may make use of cyanide in their processes, maybe you should consider testing your water for cyanide. The Cyanide Emergency Test Kit provides presence/absence test results if it detects cyanide levels between 2.0 ppm and 1,700 ppm.

In the end, if you have a private well, the responsibility for making sure the quality of the water coming out of that well falls squarely on… your shoulders. Therefore, test your well water at least once a year. It’s your well, your water, and ultimately your LIFE.

We have all heard the stories about people having date rape drugs slipped into their drinks while out at bars and nightclubs, but how many have heard of THIS? A male co-worker put his own…. ‘seed’…. into a female co-worker’s water bottle. Twice.

Just… Wow. What a flippin’ disgusting individual!

SANTA ANA, Calif. (KABC) — A 31-year-old Fullerton man was arrested on Tuesday for allegedly ejaculating twice into a co-worker’s water bottle.

Authorities said Michael Kevin Lallana was linked through DNA to the crimes.

Lallana allegedly entered the victim’s office and deposited his ejaculation into a water bottle that was on her desk in January. Police said the unsuspecting victim later drank the water, which made her feel sick, so she threw it away.

In April, investigators said Lallana did the same thing, but this time, the victim saved the water bottle and sent it to a private lab for testing. She then reported the results to the Orange Police Department.

Lallana is charged with two misdemeanor counts each of releasing an offensive material in a public place and assault, with sentencing allegations for committing a crime for sexual gratification.

If convicted, Lallana faces a maximum of three years in jail with mandatory sex offender registration. He is free on $500 bond and will be arraigned next month. ( source )

If this little bit of news does not make you want to take proper precautions to guard your water, whether in the bottle you leave on your desk at the office or as the drinking water that comes up from the aquifer and into your home, then perhaps nothing will.

Do you have control over the quality of the water in the aquifer supplying your well? Most likely not, but you always have the chance and opportunity to test the quality of water for unwanted contaminants. Periodic use of a well water test kit helps to ensure that no changes in the quality of your well water have taken place.

Huh? Test for arsenic? Why? Is someone trying to poison us? Most likely not, but we have good reasons to suggest well owners test their water for arsenic. If you want to know why arsenic testing for well owners makes sense, take a look at the Arsenic section of this blog.

Getting back to the topic of well water testing, the United States Environmental Protection Agency as well as public health officials on State and Local levels urge private well owners to have their well water tested by a certified water testing laboratory annually. Qualified water testing labs like National Testing Laboratories typically provide reliable test results in under two weeks.

Below please find a very simplified table of potential symptoms and testing methods for several contaminants which sometimes wind up in drinking water. This list in no way, shape or form represents the total number of potential drinking water contaminants. For a ‘complete’ list of water contaminants and their potential effects on human health, plese refer to the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s SafeWater Web Site.

Several members of the Water Testing Blog staff have spoken with members of the military, both currently enlisted and recently discharged, and found out that some soldiers do not have access to simple, efficient tools they can use to test potential drinking water while deployed in foreign countries.

In most cases they carry packets of sanitizing/disinfecting tablets which they can use to put into their canteens to kill off bacteria, but what about lead, arsenic, cyanide and other items which can EASILY render an entire unit inoperable and take them away from their assigned duties?

Thankfully US Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps medical units deployed around the globe now have the ability to make use of simple water quality test kits which give them the ability to read basic water quality parameters quickly and easily.

Most of us know how badly we feel after ‘a night on the town’ filled with margaritas, martinis, cocktails and body shots because of dehydration. Now try to imagine how our soldiers must feel after a few MONTHS in the desert wearing full combat gear.

Thoughts of testing water for specific chemical parameters scares a lot of folks because they remember all the horrible nights they spent cramming for an upcoming Chemistry test in high school and/or college. Trust us when we say, “We feel your pain. Been there and done that.”

You should also trust us, though, when we say you don’t need complicated chemistry sets or highly specialized training to find out if your tap water contains dangerous levels of things like:

Now, of course, should the results of your home water testing for key water parameters yield results above expected and/or acceptable limits, you will most certainly want to have a certified water professional perform more advanced tests on your drinking water and at no time should you rely on home water quality test kits if you have serious reason to suspect that your water contains know carcinogens or other life threatening contaminants. Leave that sort of testing up to the Water Testing Professionals in your area.

If you live near a mining facility you may want to check your well water for cyanide. Why? Because cyanide can enter your water from the runoff of a mining facility. Cyanide works quite well as a dissolving agent for certain highly desired metals like gold (reference). Granted federal regulations require all mining facilities in the United States to appropriately recycle the cyanide used in their process, but as we all know, accidents can happen.

Cyanide may also show up in the runoff or discharge of a metal plating facility because. . .

“Cyanide compounds are used in plating baths because they accomodate a wide range of electrical current, remove tarnish or other undesirable films from surfaces to be plated, and cause an even metal deposit to form that has lower sensitivity to impurities present in the the bath. Metals coatings of cadmium, iron, gold, and zinc often use cyanide compounds. Cyanide is typically found complexed with plating metals, or as sodium cyanide or potassium cyanide, which is added to the bath.” (source)

How can the average consumer make sure the water in their well has not fallen victim to an (un)announced industrial accident or poor enforcement of cyanide discharge laws from local industry?

Recently a company came out with a presence/absence test for cyanide that has a sensitivity as low as 0.2ppm and as high as 1,700ppm for free dissolved cyanide:

* Cyanide Emergency Test Kit — This kit utilizes EPA/ETV Test Verified chemistry and makes testing for the presence of cyanide in drinking water as simple as dipping two strips in a vial and seeing if the second strip turns colors. A change in color on the test area of the second strip indicates the presence of cyanide in the sample.

* eXact® Strip Cyanide— For those who need more precise numbers when testing for the presence of cyanide in water, the makers of the above kit also offer a cyanide detection kit designed to accurately determine cyanide concentrations in effluents and surface waters. The eXact® Strip Cyanide Kit requires as little as two minutes for cyanide colorimetric analysis and has a detection range of 0.05, 0.1, 0.2, 0.5, 1, 2, 3, 5, >10, >20, <200 ppm (mg/L).

Both kits use the same laboratory tested chemistry and yield reliable, repeatable results. If you worry about, or suspect, the possible introduction of cyanide into your drinking or well water by local industry, then these kits will help you to quickly and easily put those fears to bed or determine that you might want to investigate further using a certified laboratory’s more advanced testing methods.

Need to test for other metals?

The following metals in water test kits currently available in our Water Test Kit Store ought to help!

Most people hear and about cyanide and think of the toxic gas used in gas chambers, but few know just how easily they could locate cyanide in their everyday life if they looked a bit closer.

Cigarette smoke acts as a common source of cyanide that most of us encounter on a daily basis. The cores of peach pits also contain a measurable quantity of cyanide. Want proof? Pick up a Cyanide Water Test Strips Kit and see for yourself.

For those of you with more lofty and/or scientific cyanide testing objectives, this same kit, also called Cyanide ReagentStripTM test kit, also gets used quite often for testing runoff water leaving metal plating companies and testing the output water from wastewater treatment plants.

Does quick and dirty cyanide testing exist?

Terrorist actions worldwide have spawned fears of chemical attacks and the spiking of public water supplies with cyanide. As a result of these fears, the demand for a fast, reliable presence/absence cyanide test arose.

Soldiers, environmental protection groups, water system operators, emergency responders, healthcare professionals, and others now rely upon fast, accurate presence-absence water testing kits such as the Cyanide Emergency Test Kit to warn them instantly if water in their presence contains between 0.2 ppm to 1700 ppm free cyanide.

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Once you have properly tested your drinking water and learned what quality issues may need attention, then you can begin your search for the right water treatment system to address your unique water quality concerns!